Hot on the heels of the still popular and best-selling Galaxy S III smartphone, the Galaxy S4 made its debut on March 14 in New York. At the famed Radio City Music Hall, Samsung made what is easily the announcement of the year so far regarding upcoming smartphones. The much-anticipated Galaxy S4 made its red carpet walk, and Samsung is going to offer the handset in a massive global rollout with an incredible 327 operators across 155 countries launching the GS 4 on April 26.
Pre-announcement rumors had both a quad core and eight core processor running the handset, and Samsung revealed on Thursday that the next in the successful Galaxy S line up will deliver the first octo-core Exynos 5 Octa processor in its international version. The handset also offers temperature and depth sensors, and presents a Floating Touch feature that allows you to control the phone without even touching the screen.
The 5.0 inch display also delivers a generous 441 ppi pixel density, and AT&T will be the first US carrier to launch the handset. Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile will also offer the Galaxy S4 in the United States. The handset is slimmer and lighter than the Galaxy S III, while still delivering higher resolution and a larger display. The Galaxy S4 measures 0.31 inches (7.9 mm) in thickness, and weighs just 4.59 ounces (130 g). The Full HD display offers a resolution of 1,080 x 1,920 pixels, with more than 16 million colors present.
The screen is protected by a scratch resistant overlay, and the 8 core CPU has been clocked at 1.6 GHz. Non-international versions will offer a 1.6 GHz quad core ARM Cortex A 15 CPU, and the handset will be available in 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB models. All of those versions will deliver a microSD slot for storage expansion, as well as a PowerVR SGX544MP3 graphics processor. The handset also includes a full 2.0 GB of RAM system memory.
Samsung has substantially upgraded their camera offering, coupling a front facing 2.0 megapixel chat cam with a rear mounted 13.0 megapixel camcorder. That rear device is capable of 1,080P HD resolution video recording at 30 frames per second, while delivering a built-in LED flash, self timer, voice activation, face and smile detection and a back illuminated sensor (BSI). The Galaxy S4 will come equipped with a built-in music player, and both YouTube and Picasa applications have been pre-installed. The handset will also be NFC capable out-of-the-box.
